John Travolta would be jealous as First Street S.W. gets groovy lighting makeover – Calgary

A section of First Street S.W. in Calgary’s Beltline area is getting a retro makeover and the city wants to know what you think.

The city has installed a series of coloured spotlights, called experiential lighting, between 12th and 13th Avenues that will give the street a bit of a disco floor feel to it, the project manager tells The Homestretch.

“Over the next week, we are going to be testing the use of colour-changing spotlights that will shine on the sidewalk,” Graham Gerylo explained.

“They are intended to create a more animated and engaging nighttime experience for the pedestrians on First Street. We are playing with creating an interesting nighttime environment, which is really when the street is the busiest with all the restaurants and bars in the area.”

“We are testing out the idea to see how citizens and businesses and property owners in the area like the lighting. We want to see if it’s successful and as engaging as people feel it is. If people love it, then the [business improvement area] and the city will work together and look at some funding strategies of how we can fund and implement this program.”

It’s just a little piece of a much larger project for the street — running from 10th Avenue to 17th Avenue S.W. — that began in 2003.

Wider sidewalks, improved crosswalks, 41 new trees, 14 new on-street parking spaces and new bike racks are all part of the package.